Amazon, Facebook, Google, IBM and Microsoft pledged to address the privacy, security and ethical challenges of AI. NEW YORK -- Five leading tech companies launched a new effort Wednesday to head off government regulation of artificial intelligence, the fast-growing field at the heart of self-driving cars, digital assistants and other emerging technologies. Through the so-called Partnership on Artificial Intelligence, Amazon, Facebook, Google, IBM and Microsoft pledged to address the privacy, security and ethical challenges of AI -- by funding new research and setting up industry best practices -- as they invest heavily in complex algorithms that can understand human speech or comb through vast amounts of data. "The positive impacts of AI will depend not only on the quality of our algorithms, but on the level of public engagement," said Mustafa Suleyman, the co-founder of DeepMind, an artificial intelligence company purchased by Google, and a co-chair of the new group. He and other leaders, speaking with reporters Wednesday, said the technology could reduce traffic congestion, tackle climate change and more.

Entrepreneurs need little convincing that technology is important, rapidly evolving, and likely to have a profound impact on their businesses. But keeping track of developments, and knowing where to focus one's attention, is anything but straightforward. Analysts at PricewaterhouseCoopers (pdf) say the impact of constant technological breakthroughs represent a "megatrend" – a change so big that "every business should develop an emerging technology strategy". They have highlighted eight key areas that all businesses should pay attention to. The artificial intelligence market is growing rapidly and forecast to be worth 36bn by 2025.

Scientists studying the effects of radiation in rodents say that astronauts' exposure to galactic cosmic rays could face a host of cognitive problems, including chronic dementia. The UC Irvine-led study, published in Scientific Reports, adds to a growing body of research on the harmful effects humans may reckon with as they venture out longer and deeper into space, whether on trips to Mars or potentially beyond. "The most logical conclusion to draw from these studies is that cosmic radiation exposure poses a real and potentially detrimental neurocognitive risk for prolonged deep space travel," the study authors wrote. "With the growing realization that space is a radioactive environment comes the need to more completely define these risks with more certainty through continued research." It's well-known that radiation can damage neural tissue and hurt cognitive function; cancer patients with brain tumors who need radiotherapy end up with what the study authors called "severe and progressive cognitive deficits."

"As president, what would be your approach to workforce automation?" That's an important question that has yet to be raised during the 2016 presidential election race, but the answer could have a profound impact on how trends in automation impact the wider economy. Predictions may vary as to how many jobs the American economy could lose over the next one or two decades. An Oxford study predicts 47% of jobs could be automated by 2033; consulting firm Gartner predicts 33% by 2025. A recent OECD study suggests previous figures to be very much overblown, that the total jobs lost to automation in the next two decades is closer to 9% across 21 countries.

Today on In Case You Missed It: The European Space Agency and Russia are joining up to launch their ExoMars project next week, which will look for traces of extraterrestrial life on the red planet. Meanwhile, a newer kind of wind energy harvester is being installed in Paris, where leaves on a fake tree can capture energy in breezy conditions. The Red Bull video showing skydivers swinging in between two hot air balloons should get heart rates going, and the Disney robot is today's dose of squee, because even machines can look adorable to us. As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.

Following the Department of Transportation's timid self-driving regulations, California governor Jerry Brown has greenlit a bill that provides driverless cars with a zone to test without the need for a steering wheel, brake or accelerate pedal, or human test driver.

A former cabinet minister has likened Russia's role in Syria to the Nazi regime in 1930s Spain, ahead of an emergency Commons debate on the humanitarian situation in Aleppo. Andrew Mitchell accused Russia of "shredding" international law with its bombing campaign in the country. The Tory MP also accused Russian forces of committing a war crime by attacking a UN relief convoy last month. The three-hour emergency debate will be held later in the day. The northern city of Aleppo has become a key battleground in Syria's bloody five-year civil war.

Due to the stochastic SASE operating principles and other technical issues the output pulses are subject to large fluctuations, making it necessary to characterize the x-ray pulses on every shot for data sorting purposes. We present a technique that applies machine learning tools to predict x-ray pulse properties using simple electron beam and x-ray parameters as input. Using this technique at the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), we report mean errors below 0.3 eV for the prediction of the photon energy at 530 eV and below 1.6 fs for the prediction of the delay between two x-ray pulses. We also demonstrate spectral shape prediction with a mean agreement of 97%. This approach could potentially be used at the next generation of high-repetition-rate XFELs to provide accurate knowledge of complex x-ray pulses at the full repetition rate. I. INTRODUCTION X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) 1-3 are emerging as one of the most versatile tools in x-ray research, becoming widely used by the scientific community, as well as industry, in many fields including physics, chemistry, biology, and material science. Their brightness, coherence, tun-ability, and ability to generate pairs of few-fs multicolor pulses for pump-probe experiments 4-7 make them ideal sources to perform diffract-before-destroy imaging 8, resonant x-ray spectroscopy 9, and a range of time resolved measurements of picosecond to few-femtosecond dynamics in molecules and atoms 10-16 . A drawback to XFELs is their current poor stability. XFELs are driven by single-pass electron linear accelerators (LINAC) typically several hundred meters in length.

In just a few short weeks, we'll be electing our next American President. Among myriad other duties, whoever gets the job will be tasked with overseeing one of the most significant technological expansions the world has ever seen. He or she will need to understand these new technologies to help the country reap the most benefits from them. Of all the innovations just on the horizon, the one with the most game-changing potential is 5G wireless technology. For the last 30 years, the technology industry mostly focused on connecting people to other people.

Uber's Pittsburgh Experiment, featuring semi-autonomous vehicles, is up and running. If only its fleet could distinguish the proper path down a one-way street. And Google is reporting smashing results for its autonomous vehicle program. This is a public service alert for all you Yinzers out there: Get off the road; you're in danger. While we're at it, to unemployed tech bros desperate to get a foot in the Silicon Valley door: Don't take a gig as a Google autonomous vehicle test driver.